International visitors

A day in the life of a MDF’er

16 January 2018

When I started working at MDF, several colleagues presented the quote “never a dull moment” to me as a means to describe working life at MDF. I had read about the work MDF was doing and I had an idea of what to expect regarding the atmosphere among colleagues. However, I barely had an idea of what daily working life would look like in practice. Was it really true that working at MDF is never dull?

As part of my onboarding, I have talked with many of my fellow colleagues to figure out what working at MDF entails. This is what they told me.

Advocacy in practice

Ewoud, our advocacy and policy influencing expert, recently went to Guatemala to train a youth organisation on the topic. Having lived in Guatemala for more than two years, Ewoud witnessed multiple protests, but never participated in one before. With a friendly protest coming up in which the youth organisation wanted to participate, Ewoud decided to postpone the theory for that day and instead participate in the protest alongside his trainees. Not only was this a lot of fun for both Ewoud and the participants, they also were able to experience advocacy in practice and to reflect on it afterwards.

Singing about indicators

Not only Ewoud combines practice and theory. Trainer and consultant Jolanda told me one of her creative ways MDF’ers to abort boring trainings and endless listening to trainers going on about theories. The example took place during a training on results-based management. Jolanda would make a song to explain participants how to determine indicators. Say hello to playfulness and happy trainers and participants.

A financial controller becoming the Minister of Defence

To keep MDF running, staff members working in acquisition and finance wonderfully support our trainer/consultants. However, being part of financial staff does not mean that you will only spend time behind your desk doing finances. In Jack’s case, this meant participating in several role-plays for the EU Aid Volunteers programme. After two weeks, the volunteers tested their newly gained knowledge in a 2-day life case. Jack changed his role and became a stringent Minister of Defence. He did not only have a lot of fun doing this assignment, it also made Jack more aware of what it involves to organise a large training. Working together with our trainer and consultant Pauline, Jack felt the relationship between him as support staff and Pauline as trainer/consultant improved.

The stories from my colleagues taught me several things:

MDF’s work covers theory and practice

MDF’ers are passionate about their work which sometimes takes unexpected turns and

working at MDF can be quite diverse and is a lot of fun!

Altogether, I can assure you that working at MDF is certainly not dull.

Join MDF?

MDF is providing services in four areas: management advice, training, evaluation, and enterprising partners. Through these four areas we hope to make a meaningful and measurable contribution to equitable societies by empowering people working in organisations, networks or as individuals, to better plan and manage for positive social impact.

Do you want to contribute to positive social impact and are you interested in joining our team? Get in touch with Marjan Zandee and send us your CV and motivation letter.

This blog is written by Nadine Bergmann, junior trainer / consultant in Ede, the Netherlands.